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It’s one year and home is still a hell hole
By N.Dilshath Banu
It is two in the afternoon and the heat is unbearable. K.D. Dharmapala gets up with much difficulty from his bed to sip some tea while his wife attempts to cook a meagre meal.

Though Dharmapala is 55, his gaunt face full of wrinkles, sunken eyes and thin grey hair indicate a much older man. He and his wife live in a small shelter; a partition dividing the sleeping area, with a bed, table, two chairs and a coil tray full of ashes from the kitchen, cluttered with cooking utensils. The entrance is so narrow there is hardly any space to enter. The walls of the shelter are metal, like a container. There is no ventilation.

“Though we have shelter, most of the time, we stay outside. We can’t eat here, as it’s so hot and it is impossible to stay inside even for a short time. Even if we are sick, we rest in a corner outside this burner,” says Dharmapala bitterly.

The authorities had fixed a ceiling fan, but when it’s switched on, the circulating hot air makes the atmosphere even more stifling. When it rains, it’s another kind of suffering for then the rain water seeps through the cracks in the roof and floods the entire area.

This is the plight of the tsunami-survivors living in a temporary settlement on a plot of land belonging to the Ports Authority, just next to the Weligama Pradeshiya Sabha. They survived the monstrous wave, but the unspeakable conditions they live in are equally unbearable.

Prior to the tsunami, Dharmapala bought fish from fishermen and sold them to different places travelling on his bicycle. When the water swallowed everything he had, except his wife and eldest daughter, they were in a refugee camp for a month and then with 57 other families were transferred to this ‘temporary shelter’, where they have been living for nearly 11 months.
Though the waves took his bicycle, he is working again. He wakes up at 4 a.m., buys some fish from another fisherman on credit and walks nearly 20 miles to sell what he can.

“I come back in the evenings, but it’s difficult to relax in this shelter. If I had my bicycle, it would have been some relief. My body aches so much that I can’t get up in the morning. I wish I drowned in the waves, rather than surviving to live a life like this,” says Dharmapala, tears running down his cheeks.

For 37-year-old Mohamed Raslan, one year after the tsunami, it is still life in temporary housing. He was moved to a blue tent in Magalle, a month after the destruction and he is still in it with his wife and two children. Though he is protected from the rain and wind, the burning heat makes it difficult for them to live inside.

“We don’t stay inside even to eat, because we start sweating within a few minutes. My children complain that they can’t do their homework. Though it’s difficult to be inside my wife somehow manages to cook for us,” he said, adding, “We saw many of our Sinhalese friends who were living here moved to a housing scheme and we have been promised that we’ll be moved there with other affected Muslim families soon.”

Many of the tsunami victims were taken away from the initial shelters and resettled in wooden temporary houses, where the conditions were slightly better. Still they are forced to live under asbestos roofing which channels the heat in; while on rainy days, the water seeps into the houses.

Frustrated with the conditions of the temporary shelters built on the schoolground of Rathanasarapitiya Maha Vidyalaya in Kahawa, 48 - year-old D.Sandya, visits her partially damaged house to cook and wash clothes, though she is still haunted by the memory of the waves rushing in every time she enters her old home.

Sandya saw her possessions being washed away though she and her children survived. Her husband was at Balapitiya Hospital, but having left the hospital in the early hours of that fateful day there has been no news of him since then.

Behind the wooden shelters of Rathanasarapitiya School ground, lies a partially built housing complex apparently for affected fishermen. However, no one lives in them as many houses in the same area had been damaged by the tsunami and the fear that the waters could come in again is ever present.

Living next to Sandya’s temporary house, a grief-stricken 62-year-old Jayasena de Silva recounts how he lost his wife, children, four houses and grocery shop to the wave.

“There are many times that I have felt that I didn’t want to live. However, I have now made up my mind and I want to start the grocery shop again. But I need some financial assistance and I have spoken to several people, including NGOs but it has been of little help,” he laments.

Living in the wooden shelters in Balapitiya, 53-year-old R.G Violet says she still fears the sea. But she and her neighbours have once again been resettled close to the sea. “Everyday before we sleep, we say our prayers as if it were the last time,” she says.

All of them represent the story of life after the tsunami. They all need better housing and financial assistance to start a business of their own. All of them are still living within the 100 metre zone. Though they are the ones who were most affected, they seem to have been the least considered for resettlement in permanent houses due to the government’s changing policies on the buffer zone. One year has passed. How long more do they have to wait to have a proper home?

The RADA says:
Though many who lived in the hundred metre buffer zone claim that the Government has neglected them, the newly formed Reconstruction and Development Agency (RADA) paints a different picture.

"The tsunami damaged 98,000 houses out of which 55, 000 were out of the buffer zone. These came under the 'Owner Driven Programme'(ODP), where the displaced get money to rebuild their damaged houses. If their homes were partially broken, the Government funds upto Rs. 100,000 in two instalments and if the house was totally damaged, they get Rs. 250,000 in four instalments," says Saliya Wickramasuriya, the Chief Operating Officer of RADA.
"Initially the instalment will be Rs. 50,000 and after they use this money to build the house, there will be an inspection by a group of engineers and then, the Government will release the second instalment. If the repair exceeds the amount initially proposed, the consortium of donors will co-fund the amount needed," said Mr.Wickramasuriya.

He explained that people who are in the buffer zone are under the 'Donor Driven Programme (DDP)' and will be relocated after finding a suitable land. "Many people who fall under this category, not knowing about the programme they are in, saw the people beyond the buffer zone getting money to rebuild their houses and assumed that they were neglected. This is the misconception of not granting any aid for the people in the buffer zone," said Mr. Wickramasuriya.

However, as the 1997 'Management Plan' of the Coast Conservation Department, which relaxes the restrictions on the buffer zone was adopted recently by the Government, the people under the DDP will come under the ODPs and will get money in instalments to build their houses.

"Land had been allocated for those who are still in the DDP and in coordination with the Tsunami Housing Reconstruction Unit, we will conduct rapid environment assessment for the land and then start the construction," said Mr Wickramasuriya.

But how soon will this be? "Though the RADA is not short of immediate funds, the question of how soon the people will be get permanent houses will depend on the how soon the NGOs and the donors can finish construction," he says.

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